As social workers in our varying practices, we at times encounter clients and family systems who, despite the best of intentions and concerted efforts on their part and on ours, remain burdened and constrained by emotional difficulties from which there seems to be no release or resolution.  The following article by Barbara Phillips introduces a powerful approach to healing unconscious forces within family systems generationally that contribute to these repetitive, intractable and perplexing patterns and problems for family members that have not attenuated with  time or professional interventions.

The approach was originally developed by Dr. Bert Hellinger of Germany and was described  in 1993 in his first book,  Love's Hidden Symmetry. Family constellation work incorporates concepts from other approaches, particularly that of entanglement, explicated by earlier writers  (Boszormenyi-Nagy and Spark, Invisible Loyalties, 1984) whereby family members unconsciously take on the difficulties, dilemmas and even destiny of  previous members, especially those disenfranchised or excluded from the system.  Its way of working with these entanglements however, through the use of people representing family members, is both innovative and confounding, and reflects its underlying assumption, observed in countless constellations, that the representatives have an "un-informed" access to knowledge and awareness that actually belongs to the people they are representing.  Hellinger refers to this phenomenon as the "in-forming field".

The constellation of representatives brings into a common space multiple generations that encapsulates the dimensions of time and layers of generation through which the unresolved burdens of previous and present family members are being passed on.  Opportunity is then given within this space for the family system to re-constellate and create new relationships in which healing and healthy belonging can occur.  For the individual observing his or her family constellation unfold, a new "image" emerges that can have transformative influence at a "soul-level" for the entire system and thereby help prevent further entanglements in the next generation.

Family constellation work has both power and mystery in its thrust to restore the flow of love and healing through the generations of family systems.  In my beginning experience with it, I believe it to be worthy of our attention particularly in our work with families grappling with  persistent and  perplexing problems. Karen Rempel – clinical social worker, Calgary Health Region

Approaches to individual and community wellness have long been grounded in a medical model: find what is wrong, and fix it. Constellation is a approach pioneered by German psychotherapist Bert Hellinger that allows individuals, organizations and communities to heal themselves at a deeper level through seeing and acknowledging what is. The word “constellation” refers simply to the natural way human relationships constellate into various patterns. Constellations address sources of difficulties in human systems by looking at actual relationships that family members – or other elements of a system – have with each other.

In 2003, an International Congress on family and Human Systems Constellation in Germany drew more than 2300 participants from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Italy, France, Russia, the Netherlands, Greece, Australia, China, Mexico, South America and Africa. The Hellinger constellation approach provides ground-breaking work in restoring the flow of love to families, and energy to businesses and the communities.

“This is a pre-eminent tool for intractable family situations,” reported Dr. Gabrielle Wilhelm, German psychiatrist and constellation facilitator during a recent visit to Calgary where she recently did a workshop. “Unlike other therapeutic strategies, constellation starts a movement in the heart – or soul – of the person themselves. And the healing comes from there, when the person accepts it. All the burden of fixing falls away and a person’s life can begin to flow wholesomely again.”

What is the family constellation approach and how does it work? Here’s an example – drawn from actual constellations, stated here as a composite. This constellation could have been presented by a social worker instead of by the teen himself and the result would be just as powerful.

A teen is in trouble with drugs and alcohol. He states his problem to the facilitator, who asks about deaths, unfinished grieving and hard fates within his own generation and the one or two generations preceding. This information often provides clues to where the systemic pressure might be coming from. “And how long have you felt this way?” he continues. A long period of depressive thinking could indicate that the problem did not originate with this youth, but in his ancestry.

The facilitator then asks him to place from among the people seated in the circle, representatives for himself, his father and his mother and to place them in positions that reflect his picture of the family. He thoughtfully places each one and sits down. Here is a physical representation of the family, and that alone often reveals something of value to the individual. In some families, everyone is facing away from everyone else – like a bomb went off in the middle of the family. In others, representatives become very uncomfortable standing where they are, and are often given the opportunity to move to where it feels better. Representatives – knowing nothing of those they present – including him – start having thoughts and feelings of the person they are representing. “I can’t believe this,” the youth observes. “She is even starting to look like my mother!”

Representatives quickly learn to separate what is coming to them through the field, from their own personal thoughts and feelings. With practice, they open themselves to stand in sometimes hard and very painful roles, while the constellation takes place. This “standing for each other,” is part of the power of constellation work, in which people help each other by just being present – by holding the circle and by serving as representatives

The representative takes over important characteristics of the person he or she is representing without any prior knowledge of that individual. Hellinger describes this as the work of the field. It has consciousness, he asserts, and it moves toward restoration of the flow of love. It is also not uncommon for people to have powerful dreams before coming to a constellation session and sometimes to remember someone in their family they hadn’t thought of for years. All of this suggests to Hellinger and others that the family system is looking for resolution.

It is apparent now by looking at the constellation, that the problem the youth has raised is coming through his father. His father’s representative is distracted, unable to see his son, and appearing to be in full rejection of life itself. “I just don’t want to be here,” the representative says, in response to the facilitator’s question. “Where?” asks the facilitator. “Here in this life.” He replies.

As the constellation unfolds, it is apparent that because of difficulties affecting the father’s mother’s brother, he himself gave up on life long ago. This is an “entanglement.” The boy’s father was entangled with his mother’s brother who committed suicide at age 21. The young man’s destructive behavior seems to represent the blind love of the child who says to his father, “I go in your place.” This is a common cause of self-destructive and suicidal behavior – one almost impossible to deal with through conventional social work and therapy resources. Acknowledging the one who was forgotten can be instrumental in restoring the flow of healthy love between father and son.

At the conclusion of the constellation, the grand-uncle whom no one ever spoke about, has been acknowledged and respected, through his representative, now added to the constellation. This relieves the pressure on the father, and through him, on the son. Loving energy and strength are now flowing through the grandmother who stands with her brother, to her son, the father, to his son, the client and the cloud on him seems to be lifting. “I could feel the shift,” the youth says, as he observes the final arrangement.

“One unique quality of constellation work,” reports Calgary clinical social worker, Karen Rempel, “is its spiritual dimension of encouraging the flow of love and life through the generations which brings us support from our ancestors that can then be given to our children.” Dr. Wilhelm continues: “It is not important that the client understand the shift, for a shift to happen. Sometimes, the client hardly recognizes what is happening in the constellation until months later. The movement truly takes place at a heart – or soul – level and that family soul has a great deal of capacity for setting things right.”

There are opportunities to experience Family and Human Systems Constellation work in Edmonton and Calgary.

For more information on the Facilitation Training and Edmonton events, email info@constellationcurrents.ca www.constellationcurrents.ca or phone 780-465-1721. Fax 780-433-4163.

For more information on Calgary events, see www.aubreyassociates.com.

Upcoming Events:

The Facilitator for each of these events Francesca Mason Boring, a Shoshone is the author of Feather Medicine - a Family Systems Constellation and Coyote Dance, a book of poetry. She is published in England, Germany and Holland. She conducts constellation workshops and training in the U.S., Canada, Switzerland and Germany. She is celebrated for her capacity for engaging the indigenous knowing field that is part of all family systems – even the systems of people previously culturally blind to the effects of their family field.

Barbara Ashley Phillips is president of Erickson Coaching Skills Institute Ltd. and Western Co-Ordinator for Hellinger-Canada that offers Constellation Workshops and the Facilitation Training Programs in Alberta. .She is a mediator, facilitator, and author. She holds a J.D. degree from Yale Law School and is a certified professional coach who trains for Erickson College.